Deceiving
by taylorash
Summary: Post Bon Voyage. Implied Rogan. Fill in the blanks.


**Disclaimer:** If I owned the show, I would be sued for inconsistency. My readers and reviewers will oblige to that, I'm sure.

"I don't know…why this happened. Or even how it happened." She sighed, slowly tracing her finger over the sheets encompassing her. The material was so soft and fragile; she knew it wouldn't take much to tear them to shreds.

Funny. Her heart seemed to be in the same situation.

"It did happen though." She almost smiled. Almost. Taking the slightest sip of her fresh drink, she glanced over to her side. "And it was great. But…"

She eyed the spacious apartment. The ceiling-to-floor length windows. The bedroom that was the size of her entire childhood home.

"This…isn't exactly what I want."

Sighing again, she pulled her old silky bathrobe more closely around her petite body. She had found it in the bottom drawer in the left nightstand. Exactly the same place it had been in the old apartment.

"Were you expecting me to come here?" She asked, out of the blue. "I mean, you couldn't have been. Not after how it ended. Not after…" Glancing once again to her side, she shook her head. "What am I saying? Of course you weren't. I bet you have a slew of women coming in here every week. Doing what we just did. I mean," she took another small sip of her drink. Scotch tasted surprisingly good at three in the morning. "That is what you normally do, right? When things don't go the way you want them to with me, with us, you go out, get drunk, and bring home some random girl you picked up." She shrugged noncommittally, staring out in front of her, at something, nothing. "It's just who you are."

"I miss you." She quickly glanced to her side, before looking away. "I mean, maybe you could tell from all of this, but I feel like I should say it anyway. I miss you. I do. What happened, me saying what I did…would it be too terribly cliché if I said I regret it all, and I want things back to how they were before? Because that's what I want." She used her newly-manicured finger to trace the outline of the glass holding her drink. "More than anything."

"You know, I wasn't lying to you when I said I had thought about it before. About you, me, married. The whole package. It scared me at first, I'll admit, but," she scoffed, "who was I trying to kid? I loved the idea of us being together and hopelessly in love for the rest of our lives. And I know that was horribly cliché as well, and I'm sorry for using two mushy clichés in under five minutes, but this situation calls for nothing less." She finished her drink off, placing the now-empty glass on the bedside table. The small clink of the base of the glass meeting the table top seemed to echo throughout the dark, empty room, making it seem much louder then it was.

"See?" she said, "That's what I'm talking about. This room…it's too big. This entire apartment is the size of four," she eyed the kitchen, "maybe five of my childhood homes. And I didn't want it to end up this way if we're married. I didn't want to live in something this big. To have you be up and at work before I woke up, and not get home until I was asleep. And to be alone, all day. In someplace like this." Sighing, she plopped herself back down, her head softly hitting the pillow. "Big, quiet and lonely."

"I can't believe I'm saying this, but maybe your mother was right. If this is what it means to be a Huntzberger…maybe…" she shook her head. "Maybe I really don't know what it takes to be a part of your family. At the time, I thought she was crazy, but now…maybe, in the end of things, she really was just looking out for you. Maybe she could tell I would end up running away from this life, your life, and she didn't want to see her son hurt and broken."

She half chuckled after a moment. "Okay, I admit, that was a little far-fetched. Your mother was just scared, right? Scared that I could be more to you than anyone else ever was. And what do you know?"

She stopped talking for a few minutes, closing her eyes and breathing in slowly, seeing how long she could hold each one before her lungs forced her to breathe once again.

"When I saw you today, after almost a year…my heart stopped. And, well, it's never done that. Time and time before, you've made my heart skip a beat or two. But never completely stop." She let out a breath. "You always read about that in books. How a woman would see the love of her life after some time apart, and her heart would stop beating. I used to roll my eyes, thinking that logically that was impossible. But now…" she slowly turned in the bed, so she was facing the lump beside her. "You made my heart stop."

"That has to mean something, right? The fact that after all this time, you can still make me feel like I did when we were together back in college. But what does it mean, exactly? That this," she gestured between them, "was bound to happen again? That, no matter what happens between us; we will always end up being together in the end?"

"Look," she curled and uncurled one chestnut strand of her hair. "Would you forgive me if I told you I lied to you on my graduation day when I said I couldn't marry you because I wanted my options open?" She got what she expected, no response. "I mean, I doubt you will. I'll never be able to forget your face when you asked me. And then on the campus, when you were telling me about being tipsy when you walked across the stage when you graduated. God, you looked so vulnerable. It was like you were laying your heart on the table, and I could either take it or run." She paused, frowning. "You must have loved me so much. To trust me, and risk everything between us. You were so sure I would say yes, weren't you?" She half-smiled then, looking down at her hands.

"After that day, every day I would think to myself, ''If you could just see him for one more day Rory, what would you say? Could anything be done to fix the damage that you brought upon yourself?' And there was always one thing that I could think to say. Something that may not fix anything, but could at least, maybe, tie up everything there is that was left undone when you walked away from me."

She took a deep breath, even though she didn't need one. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry for hurting you, for lying to you, and for making you put your heart on the line, only to have me step on it without a second thought. I'm sorry I was too scared of my future to know that you would never let my biggest fears happen."

Once again, the expected silence. She breathed out, almost contently, turning so her back was facing him. She looked at the alarm clock on the table beside her empty scotch glass.

3:32 a.m. She could go back to sleep, wake up in a few hours, and sneak out of here before he even started to wake. Then, maybe they could put the other behind them and move on for good.

She closed her eyes a minute later, slowly and surley drifting off into her dreams. Of what could have been. Of what should have been. However, her eyes popped open again when she felt hot breath in her ear.

"You have nothing to apologize for, Ace. Get some sleep, and we'll talk in the morning."

Her eyes grew wide, but she did not move. "I thought you were asleep," she whispered.

He chuckled softly, draping an arm around her waist. "Looks can be deceiving."

* * *

You might hate this. You might think it needs more. You might think I didn't explain anything prior to it enough.

Regardless of these thoughts, I will not be continuing this, no matter how many people ask me too. I think if I went on, it would just turn into another cliché story, and I don't want that. I like how it turned out, personally, and don't feel any change, explanation, or continuation is necessary. Let your imaginations make up what I didn't give you.

Reviews are welcome, good and bad.


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